


Neither One of Us (Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye)

by ObliqueOptimism



Series: A Friend of Mine [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Listen guys its an AU to this universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 11:04:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliqueOptimism/pseuds/ObliqueOptimism
Summary: Klaus and Ben get kidnapped. (And meet some of Klaus's war buddies)





	Neither One of Us (Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE: it is super important to note that this is an au set in the phil'verse. this is not cannon for what has already been written. on that note: y'all, i haven't written this much in years you all are so wonderful and kind and i haven't been in such a welcoming community like this in a while. thank you all so much!

So, Cade _maybe_ fucked up big time. And it was just like him to realize it a touch too late. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the landline and called his old war buddy. Thankfully the cord was long and he could watch the two teens from his place in the kitchen, phone tucked between ear and shoulder as he made snacks. The fuck did he even have in the cabin to offer? The fuck did the teens want? 

He had eggs. Klaus liked eggs. He’d give them eggs?

“Pick up you prick,” Cade muttered as the phone continued to ring.

“Hello?” Phil’s voice sounded tinny over the phone. 

“Oh thank fuck,” Cade could almost swoon with relief. “Hey, bud! I fucked up. Come to the cabin.” And then in typical Cade fashion, he hung up.

He put the hard boiled eggs on a plate with some napkins and then a flower from the potted plant next to the window before walking into the sitting room. After all, presentation of a meal always went a long way, “I have eggs?”

Klaus looked at him with clear questioning in his eyes as he blew a big bubble with the gum he’d been chewing, “Alright, cool. Thanks Egg Man.” He went to reach for one when Ben slapped his hand away.

“First off, you have gum in your mouth, don’t be a monster,” Ben said, scolding just like Cade thought he would,” Secondly, don’t eat the stranger’s eggs.”

“Why not? I mean we’re here, my tummy’s a rumbling, and I like eggs,” Klaus moved his fingers in a wiggly sort of way at his stomach as he popped his gum loudly.

Cade furrowed his brows. “There’re just eggs? I didn’t stock up my cabin with kidnapping in mind. I also have uh,” glancing back into the kitchen he said, “pickles?” He should have thought this out better. Gotten cookies or some shit. Maybe some milk. Growing kids needed to drink lots of milk, right?

“Right on,” Klaus held up a hand as if to fist bump. 

Cade grinned and set the plate down before following through on the fist bump. He remembered when Klaus made that a thing in their unit. Before missions they’d fist bump. It was oddly reassuring that tiny Klaus did it too. 

When Klaus reached out again for an egg, Ben slapped his hand harder, “Stop being so trusting!”

Klaus turned on his brother, “Listen, the only ghost hanging around is some war vet who keeps staring at me but being relatively silent, _thank Christ_. No other little kids he’s kidnapped and murdered, so I think he’s just a fan who got excited. Besides, you agreed to be kidnapped too!”

“Because you were going to go off alone with him!” Ben yelled. “And all he had to say was _come with me if you want to live_.”

“Yeah! What a cool dude!” Klaus defended Cade.

Cade watched this interaction with a grin. Klaus was basically the same as he remembered, just shorter, not addicted to drugs and going through withdrawal, less tattoos, no apparent sadness that just hung around his shoulders from his time of abuse followed by living on the streets, and a different type of uniform. But it was nice to see that Ben was very much how Klaus described him. Someone who always watched out for Klaus and tried to stop him from making stupid mistakes.

Like Phil did for Cade.

Well Phil fucking failed this time. It was obviously Phil’s fault that Cade ran into the two teens and then sort of but not really kidnapped them. If Phil had been around Cade maybe wouldn’t have walked up to them and asked if they wanted to get away from their abusive jerk dad. Plus the line from the Terminator movie fucking made sense! Ben _was_ going to die. Not on that day, but in the future!

“The pickles are unopened, so you know I haven’t tampered with them,” Cade suggest, holding up his hands. “Honestly, I just know that your dad is a fucking rat bastard and wanted to get you out of there. Ideally I want to get all of you away from his abuse but uh, I just stumbled on you two.” 

“Pickles, Ben!” Klaus yelled. 

Cade winked as he pointed at his friend in agreement.

“How do you know that about our dad?” Ben asked reasonably. His eyes narrowed.

Cade had no answer to that besides explaining that Klaus was one of his best friends once upon a time. That the two of them hit off, both a bit into drugs (Klaus more than Cade), neither of them wanting to be in Vietnam, they both wished they could play guitar. Cade was happy to report that he had recently started taking lessons. After the Umbrella Academy went public and no one could deny that Klaus Hargreeves was in fact _Klaus Hargreeves_ he remembered how they would play air guitar together and decided to finally do it.

He’d had three lessons so far.

_Maybe he could play them a Beatles song he could stumble through._

When Phil finally showed up Cade was playing the guitar while Klaus cheered him on and Ben ate pickles.

Cade hadn’t known Phil showed up at first. Ben was just staring something down over Cade’s shoulder as he took a large bite of pickle and Klaus was just waving because he was Klaus. Only then there were hands on his shoulders and a quiet, _“The fuck you do?”_

Cade dropped his guitar and turned around. “You made it to the party!” He felt his smile tense but stay in place.

“He kidnapped us,” Ben, the traitor, helpfully supplied.

“We went willingly!” Klaus reminded him. 

“And he will go willingly with me to the kitchen,” Phil said. “Excuse us boys.” He reached under Cade’s arms and pulled him up before tugging him along.

“I can walk on my own, thank you,” Cade muttered. He was being manhandled! How dare Phil! They were just having a great time before this party pooper showed up!

“Hey, shithead!” Phil said in a whispered yell, “You can’t go around kidnapping the super powered kids of a billionaire!” Cade had kind of forgot he did that. Phil was pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Sorry,” Cade put as much feeling into the word as he could.

“You are not,” Phil pointed at him. “You’re stupidly happy to see Klaus again.”

“He laughed at my jokes!” Cade grinned, triumphant.

“The same jokes you told him ‘Nam?” Phil sounded like he was calming down.

“Of course. The ones I could tell him again whenever he was out of his gourd on drugs,” Cade paused, “Dave was a saint to put up with his stupid ass.”

Cade thought he heard Phil say _I’m a saint for putting up with your stupid ass_ which must have been the wind because Phil would never say something so mean. 

Cade opened his mouth to say something when Phil put his hands on either side of his face, “Look at me, Cadey.”

Oh no. _Cadey_. Fuck. Cade locked his eyes with Phil’s.

“We’ve been over this, yeah? Us and the guys? And then you and me some more. _We cannot kidnap Klaus,_ remember? Our new motto for the passed three weeks?” Phil was talking gently, as if he was talking Cade down after a bad trip. “We don’t know how this would affect us. At the moment we remember him because he time travels later. If we kidnap him and give him and the others a safe place then he won’t go to ‘Nam. And what if we forget why we kidnapped him? We don’t fucking know how time travel works, Cadey. As much as it pains me to say it, _and it fucking pains me because I don’t want them to go back to that assfuck either,_ we can’t take the chance.”

“But--” Cade started, knowing that Phil’s reasons were true. They had discussed this. The unit as a whole did as well as just he and Phil. They didn’t know how time travel worked. They could forget about their Klaus and wonder why they kidnapped tiny Klaus. They’d forget that Hargreeves deserves to die and would maybe buy into the propaganda he told the press. 

And how would they stop the rest of the kids from coming after their siblings? Luther, Allison, and Diego. Cade wouldn’t stand a chance against them in a fight (not that he would fight them, he would _never_ ) and the actual law would be after them. It was amazing that Ben hadn’t killed him already. 

Cade pulled Phil into a hug, “But he deserves better.” 

He knew that Phil was right. 

They weren’t Five.

They didn’t know enough about time travel. 

And if he mucked around with it enough, Cha-Cha and Hazel would maybe show up. He’d heard about him, what they do to his friend. Those bastards. He’d kill them.

Cade knows that neither of them want to send the boys back. But they know pain, the emotional turmoil and guilt they will have when they do the ‘right thing’. He’d scoff. How giving them to their abuser is the ‘right thing’ is almost beyond him. But they are soldiers and they have made the tough decisions before, they have sent friends out on missions knowing that they wouldn’t come back, they can make the _’right decision’_.

“Our two new dads are hugging!” Klaus yelled into the living room. 

They break apart and Cade wished he knew his eyes weren’t red from holding back tears. 

“You okay, big guy?” Klaus asked, genuinely concerned for his kidnapper. 

Cade turned back to Phil, “Please let me keep him.”

Klaus visibly deflated then, “Oh. So you won’t be our new dads.”

They all go back into the sitting room and have a discussion.

“We can’t keep you,” Phil said, laying down the law. Being the mean parent. God what did Cade do in a passed life to be gifted with Phil as his best friend. He was fairly certain it was his weekend to have the twins, not Betty’s and yet he came to Cade’s aid because Cade had fucked up. “We want to though, boys. But your brothers and sisters would hunt us down. The cops would hunt us down. Your father--” 

“You get the idea,” Cade said.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” Ben nodded, a hand on Klaus’s back to steady him. “But by now they probably know we’ve been taken. And if you know our father like you say, you know that even if we come back unharmed he will ruin your life.”

“But they’re so nice!” Klaus protested, “The best kidnappers I’ve ever met.”

Cade reached out and patted Klaus’s knee, “ _Thank you_.”

Klaus beamed at him.

“Okay, so what do you suggest?” Phil asked.

Then the brainstorming began.

The plan was simple. They would cover Ben in blood, from an animal obviously, and then Klaus would tell everyone that the kidnappers were dead. He saw the dead, after all, who would question him if he said he saw them.

“And then I’ll say ‘Oh no officer! They never said their names!’ Which is true by the way, ‘But it is no matter they are dead and the Horror has left no bodies and no you cannot take a blood sample he has been traumatized! Traumatized I say! He must bathe immediately!’” Klaus was okay at lying at this point in his life, but he wasn’t an actor.

“It’ll have to do,” Phil sighed. 

“And why can’t we just say we found them and drop them off ourselves?” Cade asked.

“Because there is video of your stupid van driving away from the scene on cctv somewhere and the cops would connect it you doofus,” Phil was obviously trying to keep his language clean for the boys. He had better practice since he had the girls. 

“Sorry I took you away from the twins this weekend,” Cade said, bumping shoulders with him, “to clean up my stupid mess.”

“Nah, it’s their grandma’s birthday. We switched weekends,” Phil patted his back, “It’s fine.” 

Before they implemented their plan, Phil wrote something down on a paper and handed it to them, “Listen to me. If either of you, or any of your other siblings want to get away you call one of us and we will be there for you. It could be for a five minute talk while we get donuts or if you need a few hours from home, or want to actually run away. Either of us will be there for you all.”

Somehow the simple plan worked. Klaus started the water works, really selling being traumatized by his kidnappers and how he still sees them now that they are dead. No one questions them too much about it, after all, the boys are safe and the bad guys died.

Cade decided something that day. Sure he couldn’t do the right thing, _the actual right thing_ , and take those kids away to a safe home, but he could help others. By the time the Hargreeves kids, en masse, showed up at his door he had already started an organization to help people from abused families. 

He’d also learned how to be pretty good at the guitar by then.

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah, a little bit of a happy ending where all seven of them basically get adopted by cade and he loves all of them. and maybe i'll make it official but in all versions of phil'verse cade started a program/organization to help abuse victims and homeless people. idk i needed to write cade kidnapping klaus and i knew it couldn't be in the actual 'verse so here, have an au.


End file.
